If the Justice Department takes action to keep inexpensive beer inexpensive (an action certainly counter to governments’ taxation and other policies aimed at advancing temperance), the business community can be sure that it won’t hesitate to move against other combinations, joint ventures, etc. in the next four years. Our hour-long program would be thus be a worthy investment of time.

In addition to assessing the future of merger review and enforcement, the speakers addressed civil exclusionary conduct actions; FTC and DOJ approaches to intellectual property (including standards-essential patents and patent “trolls”); criminal enforcement; international antitrust cooperation; and the division of labor between the two federal agencies.

A Powerpoint deck including slides utilized by Ms. McDavid and Ms. Murino can be downloaded here.

Addendum (Feb. 5): Further evidence of a more aggressive approach to mergers can also be seen in the Justice Department’s challenge to an already-consumated merger between two online product review companies. Read more about it from several of Janet McDavid’s colleagues here.